"Hello, Husband," said Credensa. "Get rid of your nephew okay?"
Sid nodded. "He's been successfully merged with another self, and thus reintegrated into the AddVenture. Interesting place, the Hotel. Seems full of characters, as often as not, most or all of whom have at least some idea of what the AddVenture's all about. They seem to be able to pop back there any time they feel like it. I get the idea every episode has a portal to the hotel, if a character's aware enough to use it. Interesting concept. Glad that bunch don't seem to know about Backstage Central, though. They seem a pretty chaotic crew. We might even want to put up an electric fence between us and them...
"I'll get on it," said Sendula. "Several roles of fencing appeared here while you were gone. Apparently your Author's a step ahead of you, there."
"What's up next?" asked Credensa. "Going to explore the other end? The one where that bar and grill's supposed to be?"
"I think not," said Sid. "That seems to be an Author hangout, and I don't want to see any more of them than I have to. Besides, I'm not sure it's even been enabled yet. Time enough for that when we get housekeeping set up better here."
At that point there was a wail from the basinet at the end of the dining table. "Ah," Sid said. "How's my boy doing?"
"Seems fine," Sendula said. "Credensa even experimented with using her Avocado Distractors --" (She indicated her breasts, here) -- "to feed him." She shuddered. "More than I'd want to try. In our old world, the only times these fed anything was when they got bitten off!"
Sid looked at Credensa, who blushed slightly. "Well, it is what 'breasts' are for, Husband, as you never tire of telling us. So I figured, 'Why not?' It wasn't all that bad -- actually, rather pleasurable. And it worked, too."
"That surprised me," said Sendula. "I had the idea breasts didn't work that way until women bore babies."
Sid smiled. "Hey, when Authors are at work, anything's possible. You fancy you'll take the plunge, Sendula?"
She gave him an appraising stare. "I figured I'd give you the first taste," she whispered. "Just like you always wanted..."
Now it was Sid's turn to go red in the face...
Well, one thing led to another, and the other led to Sid's bed (well curtained to avoid onlookers. A delightful romp ensued, broken only when Baby Alvin got hungry again, which brought Credensa running to the basinet. She really has bonded with the little tyke, Sid thought. A little later, after Sendula was through with him, his other wife went to try her luck with the child as well, also with satisfactory results.
Several fairly peaceful weeks ensued, without any additional drop-ins. The fence was installed, and once Jim even came over from the Hotel to see how everyone was getting on. As he seemed quite rational now, he was allowed through the fence. It was a nice visit, and Jim even played with his little cousin Alvin. By the time he left, the amazons were inclined to think a bit more charitably of Sid's wayward nephew...
Meanwhile, Sid, taking the advice of Deja Voodoo to heart, busied himself in projects. He got several versions of the Master PC program fully debugged, and password-protected to allow only himself and his wives access. Two versions he stored in Cluster computers, and the other (the deluxe version) in his personal PC in the lab area. He tried debugging some of the remotes as well, but they were too glitchy. He found it easier just to build new ones from scratch, which he did. He supplied himself and his wives with more advanced POs, that could open emergency portals capable of banishing any immediate threat from the backstage into interplanetary space. He created a Reintegration Booth, capable of merging duplcate versons of a character together for such occasions when that might be necessary, but on which he might not be personally available to do so, and instructed his wives in their use. He and his wives also put up a fence between Backstage Central and the Bar and Grill end of the Backstage, just in case... He (and they) got in a lot of practice using the PCs to spy on other episodes of the AddVenture. More knowledge of what was going on out there never hurt. Sid found the oddball "episode zero" particularly intriguing.
In their off time, of course, the Russells had lots of spectacular sex, the more so since his wives were getting less shy about their bodies. The amazons tried (with indifferent success) to train Sid in spear use. And there was one remarkable incident when Sendula got pricked by Credensa's spear and they finally got first hand knowledge of just what effect the ferrets' blood had had on their weapons... Let's just say it means more on-the-job training for Sid, and that Sendula was eventually restored to normal...
Then, one fine day-cycle, when Sid and his wives were sitting down to supper again, more drop-ins occurred.
Tue Mar 6 17:13:03 2001
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